Shannon Foraker

The crusher is the step that prepares you to run a ship, which is I would propose somewhat like an armored battalion in scale, even if the hardware weighs more, and IMHO matches the Staff and Command College. It does not appear to prepare you to command fleets. The here and now equivalent of that is the War College.

Are these effective here and now? IIRC General Westmoreland went to neither of them, but perhaps I am remembering a different general in that period.

I do not recall Honor attending a War College equivalent.

Tenshinai wrote:

cthia wrote:I wonder how treecats would handle gay love. "This is interesting," said the People.

Probably doesn´t even rate a mention. With feelings always more or less obvious to everyone, there´s probably not much that can surprise.

Remember how they look at when people don´t do what they want to do, "just because of silly human ideas"

Hutch wrote:And now for something completely different.....

Hah, TWO Monty Python references in a single short post? You´re on a roll.

Mitchell, Esq. wrote:Haven has been fighting Manticore for 20+ years with inferior tech.

I'd be more than shocked if the Haven Navy didn't have a crusher program of its own, and one that is every bit the equal, or superior, than the RMN.

Definitely not superior. If they had that, they would have a better average officer skill than they do.

They surely have something filling the same niche yes, but i wouldn´t be so sure that they have something along the very same lines.

My guess is that they have, over time and out of necessity, focused more on generating large numbers of "good enough" officers and doing what they can to have the "starpeformers" get the opportunities needed as much as possible.

Cthia wrote:Edit:
It would be nice if RFC, at some point, would give us a Haven version of Saggy Island. Shannon as a little minx growing up with her laptop, and Theisman getting drunk, Tourville discovering cigars, and Eloise...fighting off boys.

In superdeformed animated format.

Though how Eloise would get there i wonder... (she was never a navy girl...)

Very early history of Haven, House of Steel fashion, would be nice as well. Perhaps a concurrent timeline.

That, is actually a potentially GOOD idea.

Darnit man, don´t give RFC too much ideas now, we need the next several books in the MAINLINE of the story first!

phillies wrote:We for the Army iirc effectively have two of them, the Staff College (with four schools) and the War College. The Staff cCollege sort of matches the Crusher in what it prepares people to do. The War College sort of matches preparing people for promotion to Flag Rank (I am being imprecise). It appears to be a deficiency of the RMN -- or I have forgotten the textev, the smart bet being the latter -- that there is no obvious equivalent of the War College. The Havenites might be more clever. Or not.

The Crusher is essentially the step you take beyond staff/war college and the like.

The RMN would appear to handle the war college thing onboard ship. Look at the sims that the junior officers are involved in during the transits.

phillies wrote:The crusher is the step that prepares you to run a ship, which is I would propose somewhat like an armored battalion in scale, even if the hardware weighs more, and IMHO matches the Staff and Command College. It does not appear to prepare you to command fleets. The here and now equivalent of that is the War College.

I think everyone is forgetting the communications lag in the Honorverse.

Command of a starship in the Honorverse is the equivalent of having an Ambassador's plenipotentiary powers; The Crusher is not training and testing the ability to command a Starship, as much as it is the ability to represent Queen and Country without "tripping on one's sword."

The curriculum is intense Tactical problems, but there is a personal evaluation as well; simple excellence in tactics isn't enough to earn command in the RMN, the Crusher weeds out most of the Tin Gods and Politically Naive. (As much as Honor disliked politics, she was never really naive about them.)

Because the Crusher weeds out the worst of those who would embarrass the Crown or create diplomatic incidents willy-nilly, there's no real need for a second level of "Crusher" for fleet command; From a diplomatic perspective, there's little difference between a DD skipper's embarrassing incident and a Fleet Admiral's embarrassing incident. The scale of embarrassment will certainly be different, but the personality traits that might lead to an incident are the same.

phillies wrote:The crusher is the step that prepares you to run a ship, which is I would propose somewhat like an armored battalion in scale, even if the hardware weighs more, and IMHO matches the Staff and Command College. It does not appear to prepare you to command fleets. The here and now equivalent of that is the War College.

Are these effective here and now? IIRC General Westmoreland went to neither of them, but perhaps I am remembering a different general in that period.

I do not recall Honor attending a War College equivalent.

I think you misunderstood what i was referring to. The ATC from all i have read is NOT part of basic officer training.
It´s the ADVANCED Tactical Course after all.

Since i´m short on time i´ll just do an easy reference:
http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Advanc ... cal_Course
Very few officers were given the opportunity to wear the White Command Beret of a hyper-capable starship commander prior to taking the ATC.

And from the books it´s quite obvious that the ATC is NOT part of "regular training". And as the link notes, there´s not a zero number of people getting starship command before doing the ATC, and IIRC, there´s some mention of higher officers that never went to the ATC.

Hence my statement that it´s not comparable to staff or war college.

Roguevictory wrote:The main problem Fearless had was that equipping her with the Grav Lance and Energy Torps gutted her missile capability and conventional energy weapon. Like I said the idea would work much better on a ship whose conventional weapons array wouldn't be as crippled by the sacrifices made to get the Grav Lance and Energy Torpedoes in so the Grav Lance and Energy Torp tactic would be an option rather than a necessity. Obviously someone in universe agreed with me or the Homer class wouldn't have the Grav Lance and Energy Torps plus the conventional weapons they do.

The Homers can hold their own in a conventional battle against other ships in their weight class but they have the option of a Grav Lance/Energy Torp strike if their captains see the chance for one.

IIRC, DW indicated that a Energy Torpedo launcher won't work on a LAC because it requires a fusion plant to generate plasma. It is a pity, because a few (2 or 3 out of a wing) ET equipped LACs instead of Grasers might make sense. Even without TWTSNBN, I can see a LAC closing to a light second of a SLN ship's "T" under stealth, then lobbing a burst of energy torpedoes before imposing it's wedge and disappearing. It could also take out or cripple freighters.

The thought of a couple of Manty LACs taking on an SD that way, and adding to the GL reputation for invincibility would be amusing.

-- Bob G

cthia wrote:About Shannon, wouldn't it be nice if she had enough free time for some formal classroom teaching, like Honor?

She might not be very good at it. It's rather rare actually for someone who excels in research to also excel in the the skills required to be a good teacher.

And while Shannon may or may not be skilled at teaching; Sonja, I suspect, would be terrible. Lack of tact is NOT a good characteristic in a teacher. It's pretty easy for someone in her position to completely destroy the self confidence of a student entirely by accident and since she's rather notorious for her lack of tact etc, I can very easily see that happening.

biochem wrote:

cthia wrote:About Shannon, wouldn't it be nice if she had enough free time for some formal classroom teaching, like Honor?

She might not be very good at it. It's rather rare actually for someone who excels in research to also excel in the the skills required to be a good teacher.

And while Shannon may or may not be skilled at teaching; Sonja, I suspect, would be terrible. Lack of tact is NOT a good characteristic in a teacher. It's pretty easy for someone in her position to completely destroy the self confidence of a student entirely by accident and since she's rather notorious for her lack of tact etc, I can very easily see that happening.

Can confirm. Sonja Hemphill would make the world's worst teacher. Not in the lab, I think, with people who are able to (mostly) keep up with her, but middies? Good lord, she'd have half of them crying in five minutes and the other in ten.

(Which does not, of course, mean that I love her any less - but I am praying quite fervently that someone keeps her away from Saganami Island and safely buried in her labs where her assistants merely roll their eyes at her quirks.)

biochem wrote:

cthia wrote:About Shannon, wouldn't it be nice if she had enough free time for some formal classroom teaching, like Honor?

She might not be very good at it. It's rather rare actually for someone who excels in research to also excel in the the skills required to be a good teacher.

And while Shannon may or may not be skilled at teaching; Sonja, I suspect, would be terrible. Lack of tact is NOT a good characteristic in a teacher. It's pretty easy for someone in her position to completely destroy the self confidence of a student entirely by accident and since she's rather notorious for her lack of tact etc, I can very easily see that happening.

I'd have to yield to your analysis of Sonja, having intimate experience with tactlessness teachers/professors—as I perceive likewise from you, which would serve to imply that her colleagues/subordinates are obviously well educated and accomplished themselves, who are probably able to augment her weaknesses with strengths of their own and 'achieve' despite her.

However, in Shannon's case I would be very surprised if she wasn't the quintessential once-in-an-era type teacher. She has the patience, which is a very profound ingredient. You cannot be a tac-witch, IMHO, without having a strong inclination towards patience. I could be wrong, but textev seems to corroborate, given to recalling her lengthy stint at tactical in conjunction with the many times she not only was able to extract the seemingly metaphysical out of her 'puters but was able to impart to her CO the why she was seeing what no one else did. I recall a particular incident that indeed exposed a bit of this rare teaching skill. I forget the particular battle, but Honor had set up her [apparently non wall of battle ships] to shift into an ambiguous V formation, to allow graser fire from each of her ships no matter the angle. Shannon was the only one to reason that, and to figure out that what the RHN were seeing, was not what they were seeing. I wish I had finger access to that passage "See these light codes? Now watch the dance they perform," says Shannon.

"That's an inverted wall of battle. But that would be tantamount to suicide for [fill in ship type]," says CO.

"Exactly, if they were [fill in ship type]," responds Shannon.

No, textev gave many shining examples of Shannon's ability to teach.

biochem wrote: She might not be very good at it. It's rather rare actually for someone who excels in research to also excel in the the skills required to be a good teacher.

I have to agree, biochem. with one exception.

cthia, recall (I think it was ART or maybe MoH, where Tom Theisman reminded Eliose Prichard what happened the last time they have Shannon brief the Haven Congress), that Shannon sometimes has trouble communicating with the rest of us. She could never do an Introductory tactics class like Honor did, the students would be completely confused in less than an hour.

However, given her the Chair at a Symposium of some of the best tacticians of the GA regarding "Future Weapons and their Impact on Battle" and the results could be.....very interesting...

We shall see..eventually.

cthia wrote:....I recall a particular incident that indeed exposed a bit of this rare teaching skill. I forget the particular battle, but Honor had set up her [apparently non wall of battle ships] to shift into an ambiguous V formation, to allow graser fire from each of her ships no matter the angle. Shannon was the only one to reason that, and to figure out that what the RHN were seeing, was not what they were seeing. I wish I had finger access to that passage "See these light codes? Now watch the dance they perform," says Shannon.

"That's an inverted wall of battle. But that would be tantamount to suicide for [fill in ship type]," says CO.

"Exactly, if they were [fill in ship type]," responds Shannon.

No, textev gave many shining examples of Shannon's ability to teach.

Just for your reference, that was at Fourth Yeltsin where Warner Caslet was her Captain (I think it was the ill-fated PNS Vaubon, but I could be wrong)

biochem wrote: She might not be very good at it. It's rather rare actually for someone who excels in research to also excel in the the skills required to be a good teacher.

Hutch wrote:
I have to agree, biochem. with one exception.

cthia, recall (I think it was ART or maybe MoH, where Tom Theisman reminded Eliose Prichard what happened the last time they have Shannon brief the Haven Congress), that Shannon sometimes has trouble communicating with the rest of us. She could never do an Introductory tactics class like Honor did, the students would be completely confused in less than an hour.

However, given her the Chair at a Symposium of some of the best tacticians of the GA regarding "Future Weapons and their Impact on Battle" and the results could be.....very interesting...

We shall see..eventually.

cthia wrote:....I recall a particular incident that indeed exposed a bit of this rare teaching skill. I forget the particular battle, but Honor had set up her [apparently non wall of battle ships] to shift into an ambiguous V formation, to allow graser fire from each of her ships no matter the angle. Shannon was the only one to reason that, and to figure out that what the RHN were seeing, was not what they were seeing. I wish I had finger access to that passage "See these light codes? Now watch the dance they perform," says Shannon.

"That's an inverted wall of battle. But that would be tantamount to suicide for [fill in ship type]," says CO.

"Exactly, if they were [fill in ship type]," responds Shannon.

No, textev gave many shining examples of Shannon's ability to teach.

Hutch wrote:Just for your reference, that was at Fourth Yeltsin where Warner Caslet was her Captain (I think it was the ill-fated PNS Vaubon, but I could be wrong)

Indeed I do remember that particular hold card now that you've turned it face-up Hutch. It is a hilarious passage as well. And if I think about it, it makes sense. Shannon speaks 'puters. Thanks for uprighting this weeble wobble. Apology to you and Biochem.

Also, thanks for referencing that passage so that I may find it.